Entertainment

Silent Era Disney Character Finally Gets a Voice

As Disney characters go, Mickey Mouse is the alpha and the omega. In Disney's history, we all remember Mickey as the first successful character, the springboard for his creator's success. And he carried the mantle of Walt Disney through the generations.

But thanks to gaming, Disney fans were reacquainted with an older character: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a silent cartoon star that debuted in the 1920s. In 2010, Oswald was back on television screens in Epic Mickey as a silent partner in Mickey's adventures.

"One thing we learned from the first Epic Mickey is Disney fans really want their characters to talk," says Warren Spector, the creative director of Junction Point Studios, which created all the Epic Mickey titles. "Gamers understand that Mario and Link don't have to talk, but not Disney fans. They want to hear their characters say something."

So Spector went on a journey for the game's sequel, in order to finally give the 85-year-old silent film character a voice.

Oswald the Talking Lucky Rabbit

Spector is a self-proclaimed "animation geek". (He even taught a class at the University of Texas.) In 2005, he began his relationship with Disney. The company pitched him a game idea he said "a group of college interns came up with."

"'They said, 'Do you wanna make a game about Walt Disney's first cartoon star?'" Spector recalls. "I just fell in love with that."

The only problem was that Disney didn't have the rights to Oswald. According to Spector, after Walt Disney created the rabbit toon in 1926, Disney wasn't able to renegotiate his contract and lost the rights to his intellectual property. It was only in 2006 that Oswald returned to the fold, after Disney president Bob Iger traded sportcaster Al Michaels to NBC Universal, in return for the license.

But Oswald was still a silent character, until the team began working on a sequel.

"When it came to Oswald, I had a voice in my head and heard him talking to me all through the first game," says Spector.

He took that voice, along with scripts and Junction Point's character notes, to the Disney Character Voice Department, which works to ensure the official Disney characters sound the same across every medium. The staffers suggested Frank Welker, a voice actor with a 30-year career that includes Fred from Scooby Doo, roles on the The Smurfs, The Simpsons and Transformers — fans of the cartoon know him best as Megatron.

The Disney Character Voice Department strives to make characters consistant, meaning Welker will voice Oswald for all future cartoons, movies, games, or anything else Disney puts him in. Epic Mickey 2 has set the standard for Oswald going forward.

"It's amazing when you think about this media company that's the biggest in the world, and the most protective of their properties, deciding it was best to introduce this old character through a video game? Do you think that would have happened back in 1985?" Spector asks. "So now and forever, Frank Welker is Oswald."

Oswald Bringing Games to Everyone

Spector is a 30-year veteran of video game creation. He says it's hard to believe he was on The View and Good Morning America to promote Epic Mickey 2, a sign of how mainstream video games have become.

"When I started, no one cared. My mom cried when I dropped out of a PhD program to make games," he adds.

Of course, he's also working with the one of the world's biggest entertainment brands. Spector says his priorities have changed as he gets older. He wanted to make games that accomplished what classic Disney films and Pixar films could do: appeal to a mainstream audience of kids and adults. He said he feels Epic Mickey hit close to that mark.

"I had more fan mail than any game I had ever worked on. We were all amazed at the amount and emotion in the fan mail we got," Spector says.

Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is out now for Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Mac and PC, and a second player will be able to control Oswald along with Mickey Mouse.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.